Orbital Pumping by Magnetization Dynamics in Ferromagnets

Abstract

We show that dynamics of the magnetization in ferromagnets can pump the orbital angular momentum, which we denote by orbital pumping. This is the reciprocal phenomenon to the orbital torque that induces magnetization dynamics by the orbital angular momentum in non-equilibrium. The orbital pumping is analogous to the spin pumping established in spintronics but requires the spin-orbit coupling for the orbital angular momentum to interact with the magnetization. We develop a formalism that describes the generation of the orbital angular momentum by magnetization dynamics within the adiabatic perturbation theory. Based on this, we perform first-principles calculation of the orbital pumping in prototypical $3d$ ferromagnets, Fe, Co, and Ni. The results show that the ratio between the orbital pumping and the spin pumping ranges from 5 to 15 percents, being smallest in Fe and largest in Ni. This implies that ferromagnetic Ni is a good candidate for measuring the orbital pumping. Implications of our results on experiments are also discussed.